Bad Presents from Grandma

Ok first off I want to say that my blond obsessed grandma is notorious for giving bad gifts. This is not just because I’m older now. She’s been giving bad gifts since I can remember. It’s not just as I’ve gotten older she use to give bad gifts when I was a kid. The problem with me was that my birthday was too close to Christmas. I don’t really see how it is so close. Christmas falls on the 25th of December, and birthday is on January 10th. You know I have a cousin who has a birthday closer to Christmas than mine. Anyway she would give my 3 cousins who are close in age to me (including the on whose birthday is in December) all the same gift for Christmas, and I would get something else. When it was my birthday I would get an identical or nearly identical gift to the one my cousins received for Christmas. How do I know this? My mother also thought this was unfair and asked my grandma why she did it, and my grandma told her about my birthday being too close to Christmas. It’s not like I can change my birthday. I know it came from my mom, but I trust what she told me.

The dolls; did I write about the dolls? I forget sometimes I tell that story so much. Back when I was really little like 4. Anyway my 3 cousins who are close in age to me and I received dolls. I can remember if any other granddaughters received them besides the 4 of us. Anyway my cousin who I mentioned before got the best doll; a blond bride doll. My grandma tired to cover it up and “claim” they were all story book characters, and that her doll was Cinderella. Her older sister was mad; she received a Little Red Riding Hood doll. I got a “Goldilocks” doll that was a brunette! I’m not sure how that works. That’s who my grandma claimed she was. I’m not exactly sure who she was perhaps Little Miss Muffet? The funny thing is in the picture of us with the dolls the 3 of us look pissed off.

Ridiculously small clothes this gets its own 2 paragraphs. I just want to say that I did the research and looked through my paper writings; I could not find the year that I got the tiny red sweater. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess 2008 which would have been Christmas 2007. I don’t know the end of 2007 through the beginning of 2008 was kind of messy I was preoccupied with a deteriorating friendship. Anyway my parents come back with the presents. My mom tells me she got a sweater. When I open my present I got one too. The sweater was really small and smelled like perfume. It wasn’t my grandma’s perfume or even my mom’s. It was eventually donated.

Recently I received from her 2 ridiculously small shirts. When I opened the bag I took them out and I was disappointed and laughing; laughing to hide my disappointment. They were size 7 juniors. I haven’t worn a size 7 juniors top since I was in 6th grade. I show them to my dad who coincidentally got a shirt that was too large for him. I showed them how small they were. He said they were too small to fit my other cousins who are around my age. My dad tells me that the shirts look like they could fit a 10 year old. The worst thing was there were no tags on the shirts. SHE TOOK THEM OFF! I COULDN’T EVEN RETURN THEM IF I WANTED TO! I mean even if she got them on clearance or whatever I could have taken them back to the store for credit or something. She knows I’m not a size 7 and haven’t been for years. I was “porking out” the last time I visited her. I think is a ploy by her to find out how fat I’ve gotten, and to be honest I wouldn’t put it past her ‘cause she’s like that. These shirts will probably be donated too.

Let’s what were some of the better presents she gave… the faux garnet jewelry, a bracelet, a back scrubbing sponge, my stuffed lion I named Van Go, a snowglobe, an Aladdin sweatshirt, a play cooking set. Um… that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

I hate to quote Sally from a Charlie Brown but, “If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money. How about tens and twenties?” I wouldn't be stuck with ridiculously small clothes.

Defected Rival

I’ve mentioned before about how much I wanted to be like my blond cousins. What ever they were doing I wanted to do it too. No matter how stupid it looked. This what I would do. I would see them doing something “cute” that my grandma would fawn over. Then I would go and do the same “cute” thing in front of my cousins on my mom’s side. My cousins would just be confused by the “cute” things I did, and not particularly wowed by my actions. I would be very confused and usually say “My grandma thinks this is funny.” Then I would get a lecture from my mom about not trying to be like my cousins.

Besides imitating them I also wanted to be like them in ways I really couldn’t besides being blond. One of them also didn’t like that I was younger than her and taller. What can I say? She has short parents. They are all petite. I think this is one of the many reasons I dislike my height.

Like I’ve mentioned before I always wanted to be around them. I wanted their good qualities to rub off on me. Even if I wasn’t a “blond baby”. I could be “almost as good”.

In my last blog about this subject I mentioned this. I said I wanted to be elusive. I will say now that I have “defected”. I feel that I’m not on the same level as them. Whatever I am now I’m not like them. I don’t know if this is good or bad.

The hardest part is probably convincing myself that I need to do my own thing. Maybe this stems from the rivalry my grandma had between my cousin and I. We are very close in age. I felt that she could do everything before I could. She could answer the phone before me, drive a car (ok still working on that one), graduate college (still working on that one too), and blow her nose. Maybe I just thought there was a rivalry and my cousin is not even aware of it? Was it all my grandma’s doing? The funny thing is that she would always lie about my cousin like she said she got a scholarship when it was really a government grant. We learned about this from another relative.

Song that fits the blogs theme “Everything to Everyone” by Everclear.